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The National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts is a dynamic organization that fosters global education and appreciation for the ceramic arts. NCECA’s programs, exhibitions, publications, opportunities and resources inspire advancement of the field.

Posted by Dawn Holder

NCECA’s Projects Space is a platform for ceramic artists to create and present works during the annual conference that incorporate clay as medium in time-based, performative, relational or site-responsive work. 2014 Projects Space Coordinator Dawn Holder worked with Onsite Conference Liaison Paul Sacaridiz and Exhibitions Director Linda Ganstrom to select five projects created by six artists who most compellingly responded to the conceptual theme’s underlying Material World. Artists will create their works on-site in a publicly accessible area of Wisconsin Center adjacent to Gallery EXPO and the Commercial and Non-profit Resource Hall. Engagement with visitors begins Tuesday evening, March 18 and evolves through Friday afternoon, March 21.

Teri Frame

Teri Frame’s Travelers’ Tales is a paraphrase of Alexander the Great’s march into India as told in the medieval writing of Jehan Wauquelin. Travelers’ Tales emphasizes the strangeness of strangers by feminizing, disabling, and animalizing their bodies. Frame’s film visually and conceptually probes such absurdities and the attitudes that perpetuate them. Teri Frame has exhibited, lectured, and taught internationally and throughout the United States. She has completed artist residencies at the Interlochen Arts Academy, Emmanuel College, The MacDowell Colony, and PlatteForum. She is currently Assistant Professor of Ceramics at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater.

Nichole Howard

Nichole Howard invites Projects Space visitors to join her in an installation that serves coffee inside lightly fired terra cotta cups. When finished with their drinks, participants are led to an area where they are prompted to dispose of their drinking vessels by smashing, tossing or chucking their cups into the ground. The project draws from Indian tea drinking traditions and offers a fresh way to engage the ceramic material in the 21st century. Nichole Howard holds her MFA from the University of Arkansas and a BFA from the University of North Texas. She has held numerous solo exhibitions and her works have been included in group exhibitions in venues across the United States and in Taiwan.

Kevin Kaoand Xia Zhang

Bumfack Co. is in town: producing the ceramic objects you want, but can’t have – today! Join artists Kevin Kao and Xia Zhang as they create handmade ceramic knock-offs at their on-site production workshop facility. Authenticity, cultural methods of production and materiality are explored through this interactive performance installation. Kevin R. Kao was born and raised in Orange County, California. Drawing from the consumer landscape, his work utilizes value, authenticity, product and taste as a marker for personal and cultural identity. Kao is currently an MFA candidate in ceramics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Xia Zhang is a Chinese American artist who moved from Guangdong, China at a very young age. Growing up in suburban Maryland in an immigrant family heavily influences the work that she creates. Xia received her BA from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania and is currently working on her MFA at West Virginia University.

Haejung Lee

Bridges provide a passage over obstacles and also connect one side to another. This work presents a freestanding bridge made with small ceramic knots. Knots are used to represent the building and maintaining of interpersonal relationships, which bring both happiness and difficulty to us all. Haejung Lee was born in Seoul, Korea and currently lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She received BFA and the first MFA in ceramics at Kyung Hee University in Korea, and a second MFA in ceramics at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She has been an Artist-in-residence in Canada, Denmark, Taiwan and the United States. She has internationally had numerous solo and group exhibitions and has been awarded several remarkable prizes and fellowships such as NCECA 2011 Emerging artist, Best of show at Art Melt 2008, the Lormina Salter Fellowship in 2009 from Baltimore Clayworks and a McKnight residence artist grant for 2013 from Northern Clay Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This year, she is invited to Missouri State University as a visiting artist and offered her 11th solo exhibition.

Amanda Salov

Using materials common to contemporary ceramics, as well as those less familiar, this project poetically highlights issues concerning the disappearance of the American honeybee. Through the course of NCECA 2014, Amanda Salov will host a dialogue about a poignant and timely issue using the latent materiality of ceramics. Amanda Salov is a studio artist and teacher in Corvallis, Oregon. Since completing her MFA at the University of Missouri (2007) she has received numerous honors including NCECA’s Emerging Artist award (2010) and a residency at the Archie Bray Foundation. She is currently involved in several exhibitions across the United States.